Newburyport River Run Half Marathon & 5K

Runners will make their way through this historic coastal Massachusetts town less than an hour’s drive from Boston at the annual Newburyport River Run Half Marathon & 5K, a USATF-certified half that also features the 5K distance.

Settled in 1635, Newburyport was home to former president John Quincy Adams and claims actors, authors, abolitionists, former Senators, polar explorers and even a signer of the Declaration of Independence among its residents at one time or another during the past four centuries.

Famous for its coastal marshes and its riverfront streets, the town of roughly 20,000 also is the place where the first “Tea Party” rebellion against the British tea tax took place.

For the race, runners will follow an out-and-back loop course that starts and finishes in front of Cashman Park along Merrimac Street, named for the river that flows alongside it. From there, they make their way southeast along Merrimac and Water Street, which runs along the banks of the river as well.

The early couple of miles are mostly flat, as is most of the race route — the highest point on the course rises just over 80 feet above sea level, while the lowest drops to about sea level.

The course takes runners outside the city and into the rural roads between Newburyport and nearby Newbury, an even smaller town of about 6,600 residents on the Parker River.

The course winds along Newman Road and then turns left onto High Road, where the course heads north, taking runners along mostly tree-lined roads and quiet, rural scenery. They’ll remain on High Road for the next 6 miles, until they make it all the way back to Newburyport.

Runners head all the way back to Atkinson Common and Moseley Pines Park, where they make the turn right onto Merrimac Street, and begin the final mile and a half or so of the race back to Cashman Park, where the race finish line lies.

Race Weather & Climate

Nestled along the Merrimack River in the northeast corner of Massachusetts, about 40 miles north of Boston, Newburyport typically sees cool to mild weather in May, a month that has brought record temperatures as low as 24 degrees (in 2001) and as high as 96 degrees (in 1964).

On race day (May 6), the average low is 42ºF and the average high is 66ºF.